


En Flammes

by epithetta



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:11:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithetta/pseuds/epithetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's his turn to hang about, keep silent Rose company. The last time he'd done this, they'd ended up ripping the TARDIS console open with a truck, but the missing factor in that whole thing is conspicuous by its absence, and Mickey doesn't even know what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	En Flammes

**Author's Note:**

> Written utilising the whoverse_las prompt 1.3, "We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." (Oscar Wilde). Thanks heddychaa for the beta sparkles.

Since the trip here, the disaster, the…showing up at the last minute, Rose hasn't said much. Well, not since the screaming fit at Canary Wharf. Then she sort of collapsed, and Pete and Jackie took her home. 

Two weeks have gone by, Rose wandering about in her pajamas, staring out of windows and watching the people pass the front of the house with suspicion. Sometimes she pauses, stock-still, eyes wide, as if she is listening for something. Mickey knows what it is. Sometimes he stands still too. 

It's his turn to hang about, keep silent Rose company. The last time he'd done this, they'd ended up ripping the TARDIS console open with a truck, but the missing factor in that whole thing is conspicuous by its absence, and Mickey doesn't even know what to do. In his more bitter moments he thinks of making a blue box and plunking it in the garden, but Rose's heart can only take so much breaking, and that poison would reverberate back down the line to him, and Mickey knows that what he feels is petty and instinctual.

"It's nice out," he says, as Rose paces the lounge and ignores the telly to sit in the bay window and stare at the begonias outside, frothy pink flowers. "We could go down to the shops. Get some chips."

"'m not hungry," Rose murmurs after thirty seconds.

_'They say time is the fire in which we burn—'_ Mickey turns off the telly and sits back. At least films are still the same shite in this universe. 

#

Pete and Mickey take turns driving to Dårlig Ulv-Stranden, since Rose is too distracted and Jackie would have stopped to sick up every ten minutes or so. She thinks the pregnancy is a secret, but Mickey grew up in a low-class council flat—plenty of pregnant girls there . 

Norway is windy and a little cold, but nothing worse than London right now. Mickey clenches his hands on the steering wheel as he pulls onto the beach. There's no sign that says he _can't_ drive on it, and it looks all but deserted, so he runs the wipers to kick off the sand and trusts Rose to tell him when to stop.

"Here," she tells him, slapping his shoulder like a flat thunderclap and opening the door before he can stop. He halts the car and yanks the brake; Pete and Jackie are already tumbling out, staying close to the metal frame of the vehicle as Rose trips into the dunes, eyes looking for something. 

Mickey leans against the car door and stuffs his hands in his pockets. This whole thing should unsettle him, but ever since he'd almost been snuffed by a clockwork robot, his ability to maintain a steady pulse in the face of strangeness has increased exponentially. Rose wants to seek, so he'll help her find whatever's hiding.

The Doctor materialises silently , and Mickey feels his pulse quicken, his inside belying his outside, everything he wishes could be different seeming to crumble like old plaster.

#

Somewhere in the middle of the night Mickey opens his eyes and she's there. It's one of those illusions that becomes solid the more awake he gets, and even when he rubs the last of the sleep from his eyes he isn't sure if, when he reaches out to touch her, his hand will meet with skin or shadows.

Rose's hair is a mantle about her face, a saintly glow in the moonlight, and for a moment he thinks about all the religion his Gran had tried to stuff into him when he was younger. He wonders what the Doctor would think about tracing images of god over Rose's figure, but he knows now more than ever that whatever the Doctor thinks doesn't matter anymore.

"He's gone," she says, and her admission sounds like a sigh wrapped in a plea. Mickey's hand touches her arm finally, solid and real and warm.

"He thought he was saving you," Mickey says. _Is that so horrible?_ he doesn't ask.

Rose pulls her hair behind her ear and he can see the curve of her jaw, the upsweep of a cheekbone. "How could this be saving me?" she mumbles, and the back of Mickey's mouth tastes like ashes.

"He did save you from the void," Mickey says, feeling the cyber response fall out of him, soulless and hard like cold chrome. "You're with your mum and dad." And then he takes a leap. "You're with me."

Rose turns so that he can see her eyes, and they're wet and hard, gemstones freshly-pulled from a water tumbler. He wants to tell her that maybe the Doctor had saved him as well, but that doesn't feel right. When he pulls back the covers and she crawls in next to him, like she's done hundreds of times before--before the Doctor, even inside the TARDIS, that doesn't feel right either.

The bed is unfamiliar; it reminds him that this whole place is unfamiliar, not where he should be. Or maybe everything he shouldn't be. Rose's arms wrap around his shoulders, her tongue hot on his neck, something wet rubbing off her face, and as he pushes into her, it doesn't feel like it used to. It stings a little, but he can't tell if that's his insides or outsides.

Coming feels final, like signing a contract in blood; Rose's little sobs under him aren't meant for him, but each one is. Mickey thinks about all that religion that he ignores, and he wonders what God has to say about things like this. He wonders if there's a god in this universe, too, and if it's the same one, or someone else. In the dark, the moonlight draws on Rose's upturned face, a black light highlighting damp trails on her cheeks, and Mickey thinks that someday, they'll be rewarded for all the good things they've done.

Someday. 

END


End file.
